Lavender Orpington project ....

[onthespot]

The mother is my orignial barred EE hen. I got her from someone who raised her from chickhood. She was "a feed store chick" and was in a pen with about fifteen or twenty other roos, mostly marans. I will never know who da "baby daddy" is for the roo I kept out of the fertile eggs she laid when I got her home. Here's the hen.

I kept out the best cockerel from the unknown crosses. Here he is. I gave him away to a guy that usually eats the roos I gave him. For some reason he has not eaten this roo. He has him in with his muscovy ducks. I need to go get him back, because I suspect he is the "carrier" of the chocolate if it is indeed chocolate. The good news is, he is single gened for pea comb AND barring, and you can see in the pic there is some feathered shanks to clean up. I know Dave will not eat him, because he thinks he is too tough and old. Plus he can get as many tender young roos from me as he wants. I do need to "reclaim" him as mine though... officially. He is just a three minute walk from where I am keeping my birds, but I do need to talk to Dave and let him know I want that roo back. Here's the roo.

If I am right, then crossing him on the "chocolate" barred olive egger would possibly give me chocolate barred (or solid, even better) and possibly single combed roo.

Edit: Ooops! If I cross him on the barred hen, Everything will be barred, some single gened, some double barring gene, and I have to grow out everything to find out who is a roo.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

That is a good looking roo!

 

[onthespot]

Yeah, and he is sweet too. Pretty crappy type for orp though... Five steps back if I cross that on an orp, but you gotta start somewhere. He is even kid freindly!

 

[lildinkem]

If I was to restart a plan to search out the gene, I would include Buff Orp just for the Red gene and white leg color. Then your guess is as good as mine. I would think breaking out the Crayola Crayons and see what makes Brown from Red. lololol I know it don't work that way. BUT..... MAYBE..... Black? Blue? On the Buff. Who ever figures it out with large fowl will be ahead of anyone who has imported the Choc Banties. So, by using ONLY LF for the project you regained your five generations.

 

[onthespot]

The fact that the daddy has feathered legs, probably the daddy was a marans. Since he is single gened, it cuts out the cuckoos. No silver leakage on him or any others, rules out the birchen and blue birchen marans. Clean legs rules out the leghorns and clean legged marans. There really are only about one of five roos, all now long gone, that could be his daddy, and I saw them all. Some were very handsome. Some needed harvested ASAP! Since this guy is handsome, I'm betting his daddy was one of the feather legged marans roos. Plus, he has thrown some decent darker egg genetics off of this hen, who lays a khaki egg at best, sometimes washed out khaki. Some things I will never know, looking back, just do my best and look forward I guess... (?)

 

[onthespot]

I'm thinking to go just with black, the best black I can, and keep the genes very simple, black, choclate, and lose the barring, pea comb and feathered shanks, working on type all the time. Maybe my BamaChicken over done orps will be just the ticket here... maybe? Can't hurt to try. If nothing else, they will all "taste like chicken" in the long run.

 

[lildinkem]

Quote:
That would be a great guess. The tail is definitely Marans. I like the tail.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I am a genetics idiot and there is no way I could come up with that gene on purpose. Those chicks I had that were so pretty chocolate chicks have coloring alot like yours Patti.

My friend Katy was the one who figured out who I bred them too in my Dr. Frankenstein period. They were my BCM roo and my Dark Cornish hen. I have one left I think that I haven't culled and if I get the chance I will take pics tomorrow to compare. It is a start for someone anyway.

 

[lildinkem]

Quote:
One thing I did notice is how difficult it is to remove the Rose comb gene out. I had some hatchery RIR's, who were nice enough, lousy type. BUT, it was evident that somewhere someone had the idea of mixing a Rose comb with a single comb. The results are sprigs. I winded up getting rid of all my RIR's to two Racoons. I did catch them Coons and they caught .22's. I can see that being a possible issue down the road.

 

[onthespot]

Time will tell... Right now, after posting this stuff, I feel like driving up there and pulling that roo out of the muscovy pen and taking pics of the hen in question. Better wait till daylight though I guess.